


AAA Christmas Spirit Wanted

by Twinklingbright



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Advent Calendar, Baking, Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Christmas, Christmas Cookies, Christmas Decorations, Christmas Music, Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sad Remus Lupin, Sad Sirius Black, Unresolved Tension, Worried Remus Lupin, Worried Sirius Black
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:00:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27805726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twinklingbright/pseuds/Twinklingbright
Summary: It's difficult to build up the Christmas Spirit when you're stuck in a house you hate with only the occasional visitor to keep you company. That, however, doesn't matter, because Harry deserves the best Christmas ever and Sirius Black is going to find that Spirit and turn the damned house into one just out of a Christmas village if it kills him.Written for the 2020 Advent Ficlet Challenge.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5
Collections: 2020 Advent Ficlet Challenge





	1. Tis the season

“What are you doing?”

A bowl clashed to the floor as Sirius jumped up startled, its contents spilling on the stone floor.

“Remus! Don’t sneak up on me!” he exclaimed, breathing heavily.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” Remus apologised, bending down to retrieve the bowl and wincing as he caught sight of the spilled dough.

“I’m sorry”, he repeated.

“It’s fine”, replied Sirius with a sigh. “It probably wasn’t that good anyway.”

Remus frowned, making a small sound of disagreement.

“Why would you say that?”

“Because I haven’t baked in years and I can’t even remember the recipe properly?”, suggested Sirius, letting himself fall into the nearest chair.

Remus froze, at a loss of what to say when confronted with the reminder of what his friend had been through, and of the consequences he was still trying to come to terms with. After a quick glance at him Sirius sighed quietly before plastering a smile on his face.

“So, what brings you here? No dangerous missions for the Order today?”

Remus visibly shook himself before replying with a deliberately lighter tone that he was, indeed, free for the day.

“Maybe I can help with whatever it was you were going to bake?”, he offered timidly, biting his lip.

Sirius blinked at him before breaking into a real, if slightly uncertain, smile.

“Really?”

“Absolutely. Not sure I’m much better but- well, we can try? What were you making?”

“Gingerbreads”, replied Sirius, standing up with newfound energy and moving around the kitchen to check if he had enough of each ingredient left.

“Gingerbreads”, repeated Remus, voice thick with disbelief.

“Tis the season!”, Sirius proclaimed cheerfully.

At Remus’s raised eyebrows, however, he looked down.

“I want to make sure I can actually make them by the time Christmas comes around. It’s the first Christmas Harry gets to spend with- you know, us. I want to give him everything. And I can’t. I know I can’t. But I can try, right?”

Remus swallowed. From what he had heard Molly was going to invite Harry to spend Christmas at the Burrow with the rest of the Weasleys, and she had no plans to ask Sirius, nor would he be allowed to leave Grimmauld Place even if she did ask. There was no way he was going to tell Sirius that, though. Not when that was something he was actually looking forward to. He smiled at him, making a note to himself to find a way to have Harry over, at least for a few hours.

“Come on, let’s see what we can do”.


	2. Bells

“You know what we could do?” Sirius asked Remus through a mouthful of gingerbread. It was well past midnight, and after spending the better part of the day baking they had both ended up covered in flour and dough bits and surrounded by tray after tray of failed attempts at gingerbread. The last attempt had turned out edible enough that they were actually enjoying eating them, though, so that was an improvement.

Remus sighed, exasperated.

“No, Sirius. We are not giving the first batch to Severus as a Christmas present.”

Sirius snorted.

“Moony, you wound me! That’s not what I was planning! Although”, he added, looking pensive, “now that you mention it…”

“Not happening”

Sirius let out a dramatic sigh.

“Boring, boring Remus Lupin”

Remus rolled his eyes, taking a sip of hot chocolate to hide his grin. He was glad to see his friend like this, joking around and without the haunted look in his eyes that had become normality lately.

“We could have Arthur bring them to the Ministry and leave them there for anyone who - oh! Even better! We could put Veritaserum in them first-“

“Tell me, what could we do?” Remus interrupted.

Sirius gave him one last grin before replying.

“You know that in order to create a fully immersive Christmas experience you need to engage all five senses, right?”

“I didn’t, actually. Where did you hear that?”

“Dora may or may not have given me a book on Christmas decorations”, Sirius admitted sheepishly.

“Did she now?”

“Not the point. Point is- we’ve got a hang of the gingerbread, right? So we should be fine with taste and smell. And the decorations should be enough for the sight- maybe we could start putting everything up tomorrow? Or, well, later today”, he corrected himself, glancing at the clock.

Remus winced.

“I’m- sorry, but I’m supposed to be somewhere for the Order in the afternoon”

“Oh” replied Sirius, all traces of excitement gone from his face.

“It’s the last time before the full moon, though.” Remus hastened to explain, “And it’s just for a couple of days, we still have time to decorate together if you want to wait for me.”

Sirius muttered something that, even to Remus’s heightened hearing, was unintelligible.

“Or we could get a head start today and leave just a few details for when I get back?”

Sirius gave him that fake smile that had never been able to fool anyone and stood up, bringing his empty cup to the sink and putting it down with a little more force than strictly necessary.

“It’s alright, Remus. I know you’re busy. I can do it myself.”

Remus stood up too.

“I want to help. Let’s do it this morning, alright?”

“You need to sleep if you’re going to be out there right in the midst of danger.”

“I’m not that tired.”

“Remus-“

“How about we work on another sense, mhm? How about hearing? What were you thinking?”

Sirius debated with himself for a few more minutes before huffing.

“Bells? And- maybe snow? But Remus-”

“Good, then we’ll find the right spells”, interrupted Remus.

Sirius sighed. What was the point of arguing, really? That was what he wanted, and he knew that it was selfish but- well, that was it. He wanted Remus to stay. He wanted them to decorate for Christmas together. He wanted-

“I think I found a variation on the Levitation Charm that might work, but I’ve no idea how to make bells jingle in a way that doesn’t become irritating after ten minutes.”

Remus hummed.

“Maybe we could…”, and off he was, thinking aloud about magical theory and possible applications as if that was the only thing that mattered. And Sirius loved him for it.


	3. Chilly

Sirius rubbed his eyes and squinted at the small print. It had been a long day of research and he was still nowhere near satisfied with the results.

Snowflakes fluttered weightlessly around him, chasing each other gracefully before slowly making their way to the ground where they landed softly, almost silently, and covered the floor in what felt like a wool carpet.

It had taken him hours to get them to flutter with the right intensity, speed and elegance. Even more hours to make them stick to the ground in the right way, making sure they weren’t going to melt and turn into a wet puddle of something slippery.

The wintry atmosphere was there. He could feel it.

But that was exactly the problem. He could feel it too much.

Sirius shivered, burrowing further into his coat. The air had been chilly all day, but by now it was downright freezing. Because yes, he had managed not to make the snow melt when it touched the floor. And yes, he had managed to soften it so that it felt like wool instead of ice. He had even found a way to make it disappear when it fell on a living being. But he still had no clue on how to change its temperature without destroying everything.

_Remus would know_ , he thought for the thousandth time that day as his body gave another shiver. But Remus wasn’t there and would likely be gone for another day, at the very least. No point dwelling on that. He snorted. Right, as if that wasn’t what he was always doing these days.

Rubbing his hands to warm them up, Sirius tried to concentrate on the book in front of him. It wasn’t easy, what with the cold biting at his bones and his negative thoughts reverberating loudly in the back of his mind.

“For Harry”, he said firmly through his chattering teeth.

There was no way he was going to let him freeze throughout his Christmas holidays. He simply had to find a way.


	4. Deck the halls

He did not find a way.

No matter how many books he filtered through, it seemed that there was absolutely no way to make snow feel warmer. He had tried a warming charm on the snowflakes and, although they did not melt, they didn’t start releasing warmth either. His attempt to warm the air around the snowflakes instead of the snowflakes themselves had yielded slightly better results, but since the effect had lasted for a whole three minutes before disappearing completely, he could definitely say he hadn’t been successful. Casting it on his clothes had had the longest result so far, but although he felt almost warm, the air around him was still icy.

When he had finally given up for the day he had decided to curl up in front of the fireplace in his Animagus form, with all the blankets he could find carefully wrapped around himself and warmed up by the spell. Strangely enough, he had actually slept well.

Today was a new day, however. Remus was still not back and the frightful silence of the empty house had become too much to bear, to the point that he had resorted to turning on the timeworn radio in the drawing room that only picked up the Christmas station. After all, monotonous Christmas carols in the background were still better than unbearable, oppressive silence.

His plan for the day was to busy himself with transfiguring all the ugly objects he hated into Christmas decorations. Maybe if he kept moving he wouldn’t feel the cold so much. Or at least not freeze to death.

Transfiguration came easily to him and he moved quickly, transfiguring gruesome antique after gruesome antique. However, he stopped short when he realized that he was humming Christmas carols under his breath. Genuinely, not just to give the impression of being cheerful.

_I’m actually enjoying this!_ , he thought, surprised. Because he used to enjoy decorating for Christmas, and had always loved transfiguration, he knew that. But who would have thought that a few Christmas decorations would lighten his mood enough that he ended up humming along Christmas carols, of all things. He was doing this for Harry. Making him happy was the only thing that really mattered and he wasn’t expecting to enjoy himself in the process.

Well, if there was one thing he had learned it was that his happy moods disappeared much faster than they came, and the last thing he wanted was to waste the little happy time he had trying to figure out why he was feeling that way. Maybe singing Christmas carols was not such a terrible idea after all.

“Deck the halls with boughs of holly”, he started as he took one of the silver cups with the Black crest that his mother loved and transfigured it into a garland. With some pine scones and candles, maybe? And- why not? Holly on the ruined handrail?

“Fa la la la la, la la la, fa la la la la, la la la “


End file.
